A TRAVELERS GUIDE TO THE LANDS OF THE TSALAL, by Howard Philips, Arkham Tourist Press
A TRAVELERS GUIDE TO THE LANDS OF THE TSALAL, by Howard Philips, Arkham Tourist Press It can be said to be fortunate that the Tsalal slowly metastized, developed being an inadequate word to describe so remarkable a race, at the south pole, remote from any other lands or human contact. Wise providence had set in motion ferocious circular currents, known today as the Antarctic Circumpolar Currents, but known then as the Southern Seas, around this remarkable land. They were also known as the "Roaring Forties", the "Furious Fifties" and worst of all, the "Shrieking Sixties." So ferocious and unpredictable were these currents, that even prior to the discovery of the Tsalal, there was a sailor's saying: "Past 40 latitude there is no law, past 50 there is no god." To brave these waters was an extreme test of seamanship. Indeed, sailors who had braved the passage of the Cape Horn, those ferocious waters beyond Tierra del Fueggo, which came closest to Antarctic lands, were accorded special distinctions. A sailor who rounded Cape Horn was entitled to wear a gold hoop earing in his left ear, to dine with one foot on the table if he so pleased, and to wear a tattoo of a full rigged ship. By these marks, any who knew the sea would recognize such a man as a sailor of worth and distinction. The remarkable and appalling storms and currents dissuaded European explorers from pressing any further south than necessary. Thus, Columbus would discover North America in 1492. In 1501 Amerigo Vespucci would sail the coast of South America. By 1521, Ferdinand Magellan would circle the globe, a feat repeated by the inestimable Englishman, Sir Francis Drake in 1580. From 1606, the Dutchmen Janzsoon and Tasman had located Australia and New Zealand. But such were the rigors of Antartic waters, that for almost two centuries past the great age of exploration, no seaman dared enter them and no European or American ship was deemed sufficient, until Captain Cook and his fateful voyage. Were the fates merciful, perhaps even Cook might have been deterred and the Tsalal happily unknown, even to this day. For the savage storms and deadly winds and currents of the 'furious fifties' and 'screaming sixties' were not just a barrier to the Europeans. The Tsalal, unlike the Europeans, had no genial coasts to cling to in learning the craft of the sea. Europeans before they ventured into the open waters of the Atlantic, had learned the breadth and depth of the mediteranean and travelled the coasts of Africa. Before Columbus discovered America, Bartolemew Diaz had rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Thus, Europeans had a thousand years of learning the arts of seamanship in graduated steps. For the Tsalal, nature was not so generous. They did not know of any other lands, as Columbus did, and did not even suspect the existence of other lands. Their tradition of seamanship was not nearly so robust. And the waters they braved were the most ferocious on Earth. The Tsalal's brief flirtation with exploration, a thousand years ago had revealed only the cold islands within their Antarctic circle, and these were inhospitable enough. There was little motive to go further, to brave savage waters for the rewards of inhospitable rock. And to the science and philosophy of the Tsalal, that was all that they expected to find, occasional barren and windswept rocks, and ever more ferocious seas. Their philosophers assumed the existence of another continent at the other pole, but saw no feasible means of reaching it. Thus, the Tsalal remained where they were. And, had a merciful god deemed otherwise, would have remained until the end of time. - "Where the Tsalal set foot, the gods themselves flee," Mapuche proverb, circa 1870, Ecuador refugee camps. - Is this me, or at least one of Tsalal nations will going to embark on some colonialism and overseas expansion in after post-Cook era ? You might want to look up where the Mapuche were living, and how they were doing... Yeah, I should have realized that they will much earlier than this....